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A Critique: Worship Wars by Robert Bakss
Christians have to change. They are predestined to conform to the image of the Son (Rom 8:29-30). Not all change is good though. Conforming to the image of the Son in Romans 8, good, but conforming to the world in Romans 12, bad. Robert Bakss talks about changing in his book, Worship Wars. The way he changes is not what I expect in the Romans 8 type of change, the kind authored by God. He conforms to the world and he doesn’t want you to judge him for it.
The Title
Like the movie “Star Wars”, the battles rage from episode to episode, with Bible verses being used as the proverbial light sabres to attack and defend each other. It is with this in mind I have used a “Star Wars” theme for the sections of the book, with a little bit of “tongue in cheek”! [He’s Australian and British punctuation can go inside or outside of quotation marks.]
James 4:1-2
Bakss reveals here his tack for the book, which is, music isn’t worth fighting over. The fighting itself is the problem, a violation of James 4, he surmises. Everyone who divides over worship style, that is, causes war, does so because of fleshly reasons, vis-a-vis James 4. They’re all wrong also with improper motives. No particular music itself is the problem — only the fighting over music is the problem. Bakss makes a bad application from James 4:1-2 right from the get-go. How?
James in his epistle explains why wars occur. He’s not saying that everyone who wars does so for the same reason. No war would occur if there were not people living according to lust, essentially characterizing unsaved people, the proud who will not humble themselves, so that they do not receive saving grace. However, war itself isn’t always wrong, or else Paul would not have called for warring in all the places that he did. David warred. Were his righteous wars? God calls for war. Sombody’s got to fight back when things are going wrong, justifying the fighting. Both sides of a fight are not always wrong.
I’m not going to go further in exposing Bakss’s point, but he messes up right off the bat. If Bakss directed his application at himself, he wouldn’t have even written the book, because he’s warring against something by writing it. That is obvious. Instead of writing the book, he could have prayed, and not to consume it upon his own lust as James suggests and as a necessary conclusion to Bakss’s own viewpoint. On the other hand, I believe some war is justified, so I’m fine with criticizing his book and rejecting how he worships. I think war over worship is worth it. Nothing is more important to fight about. If he doesn’t think that’s true, he should have never written the book in the first place. He’s not following his own interpretation, albeit a false one, of James 4:1-2.
Music Is a Language
Next Bakss makes a valid point, “music is a language.” He’s going outside of scripture to make that point, but I agree with it. Then he contradicts his own point. He says, “just like in our spoken language, we are more comfortable to speak one over another.” He compares different languages to different musical styles. He’s saying that the language we speak, our native tongue, is like our most comfortable musical style, as if each musical style is its own separate language.
Musical styles are not parallel or synonymous with different languages. Music itself is a separate, singular language and the various styles of music are not individual languages. Musical styles are like styles or forms of the same language. Language can be used in a moral manner or in an immoral manner. Paul commanded: “Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth” (Eph 4:29). Like language, music can be corrupt. Like language, it can be and should be judged.
Bakss isn’t clear in the rest of this section of his introduction, but he seems to be saying that the affect of music comes from its associations. In other words, music has no objective meaning without association. The associations of music, he says, are what triggers people or stirs people up to war. There is inherent meaning in language irrespective of association. God forbids corrupt communication. He prohibits corrupt music.
The Lord Jesus saw the corruption brought into God’s house and became indignant. He warred in John 2. His disciples saw it and thought of Messianic texts, those bearing witness to His identity. Corrupt music brought into the house of God should cause indignation to righteous men.
Sacred Music
Bakss puts “sacred music” in quotes, questioning the existence of sacred music. He is arguing that no form or style of music is sacred. This contradicts his “music is a language” statement, because language can be profane or sacred. Jesus said it was a primary way by which a person manifests the condition of his heart.
If someone is going to say that music is a language, no manifestation of humanity has more of an opportunity to be corrupt than language. The Bible itself says this. Like with language, there is a range of acceptable moral music, but there is a threshold where one enters into immoral language or music. This immoral music is what should not be used in worship for God and righteous people should war against it.
Change
Bakss testifies that he wrote Worship Wars “born out of a worship war within me.” He had preached against the position on worship music that he now promotes. First, he confesses that he had sinned by preaching against the music he now favors. Second, he rationalizes why he did such. He didn’t know any better, just like his parents didn’t think there was anything wrong with painting his crib with lead paint. He parallels his former position on music to slave owners in early United States history. The idea here of course is that those people could change on slavery and so could he about music. People can be wrong.
It is true that large groups of people are often wrong all at one time. The Dark Ages are witness of this with most saying the world was flat. What Bakss tell us unique about him for his approach of the subject is that, one, he could use his legal training as a lawyer to dig this one out, and, second, he studies both sides of the issue for objective sort of witness. Furthermore, he isn’t going to depend on anything outside of scripture (except for perhaps that music is a language and I’m going to guess many, many other things throughout his book), like “psychology” and “assertions of the musically elite,” but just the Bible. He’s implying that this is going to be a new approach, just looking at the Bible, and nothing else, like “subjective feelings” and “cultural bias.”
My own personal testimony is that I grew up in Southern Indiana with bluegrass, country, or just plain popular music, and I in time rejected those as fitting for worship of God, that is, they weren’t sacred. I changed. When I changed, the assumption here as posited by Bakss is that I, among others like me, it was because of the illicit influence of psychology, musical elitists, non-lawyerly types, and people who were experts on music, rather than lay people, who have an edge over someone who knows more.
No Expert
In recent days, before he died Harold Camping promoted his hermeneutic and theological positions by bragging that they were not under the influence of any kind of special training. Bakss writes:
Whilst I write with a measure of candour, it is certainly not my intention to portray myself as an unquestioned authority on this subject, nor do I want to be slanderous or malicious in the presentation of my research.
He started his book by impugning the motives of those who differ, then also later writing, “We simply must get to the point when we can talk about these issues in a calm way without assigning malicious motives to those with whom we do not agree.” It would be best to keep the discussion to the music itself and not judge motives, even if Bakss already failed at that stated goal.
Bakss continues: “I simply desire to be a musical layman’s voice of balance and reason.” You can write at a layman’s level, but you’ve still got to write what is right. And if expertise doesn’t matter, why does it matter that you are a trained lawyer? He insists his motive is “to help bring about a cease fire” in the worship war. His “heart’s desire is not that worshippers become liberal, but rather that they become liberated from man’s traditions, to worship God with a fresh liberty from the Holy Spirit.”
If music isn’t amoral, it can be used as false worship, so the war is against false worship. A cease fire would the wrong decision. Bakss has already failed at showing the amorality of music. Christians don’t have the liberty to sin. False worship is sin.
“Fresh liberty,” I surmise, is one discovered by someone once oppressed by Pharisee-like additions to scripture. Judging worship style, he is asserting, is a Pharisee-like addition. The offer of, shall I say, “a fleshly lust” or a “lying vanity,” isn’t a “fresh liberty.” Satan told Eve she had liberties that she really didn’t have. The Holy Spirit doesn’t manifest works of the flesh. What Bakss poses as liberty really is lasciviousness, something that we can and should judge according to scripture.
Next: Chapter One
The First Worship War
I had introduced the intention to review Worship Wars, which I will, but this is a start. I want to use this little space as I often do before I start writing, to point you to a sermon by a man who stood with me in my wedding 31 years ago. I had 4 or 5 good friends in college and graduate school, and one was Dwayne Morris. I was also a member of Calvary Baptist Church in Watertown, WI for 12 years, between the age of 12 and 25, one of which I pastored Immanuel Baptist Church of Elkhorn, WI, so I wasn’t there at Calvary that year. To me a big irony, Dwayne is assistant pastor at Calvary now and he preached there this last week. It’s a sermon that ought to be common knowledge of every Christian (I put at least one disclaimer on running buses and handing clothes from a clothes closet as preaching the gospel — they’re not — almost everything else though is terrific). He titled it, The Metanarrative.
A war started in the Garden of Eden and continues for the souls of men. God calls it a war all over scripture (2 Tim 2:4, Eph 6:10-18, 2 Cor 10:3-5). I’m saying it’s a worship war, because the first act of worship, accepted by God, is the offering of one’s soul to God by faith. He will restore your soul (Ps 23:3). Satan would have us hang on to (keep) our soul (psuche, translated life in Mt 10:39) for ourselves, which will result in losing our soul forever.
Are you going to heaven?
Have you ever wondered where you would go after you die? Or have you ever wondered what it would take for life to really make sense? The answer to those questions are found in personally accepting Jesus Christ as your Saviour. My friend, there is only one way to get to heaven and that is through the Lord Jesus Christ who died and shed his blood for your sins. Jesus said “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” Going to church is not the way, being good is not the way, being religious is not the way. Only simple faith in Jesus is the way to heaven. The Bible says “ye must be born again.” You need to admit you’re a sinner and in need of forgiveness. “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.” You must believe that Christ died and shed his blood for YOUR sins and rose again from the dead and be willing to turn from your sins. You need to call upon the Lord in prayer to forgive you of your sins and save you.
The Bible says “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” Simply put, if you will personally ask Jesus Christ to save you and give you His gift of eternal life…He will! Why don’t you make this simple decision right now. It makes all the difference in the world…and in eternity! Why don’t you settle the matter now. Simply call upon God in prayer and pray something like this;
“Lord, I know I’m a sinner and if I died tonight I wouldn’t go to heaven. I now repent of my sin and believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross in my place, shed his blood for my sin and was buried and rose again from the dead. With all my heart I turn from my sin and receive Jesus Christ as my personal Saviour right now. Thank you Lord, Amen.”
Let us know if you have prayed this prayer and trusted Christ as your personal Saviour. We have some free material we would love to send to you to help you in your journey with Christ.
The Trip to Europe Continued (Fifteenth Post In Total)
One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine Ten Eleven Twelve Thirteen Fourteen
I’ve got several posts that I want to write. They don’t run out. There is always something, even if most out there in the readership world don’t think so. However, I want to do a series of posts with a critique or analysis of a book entitled, Worship Wars, by a man named Robert Bakss from Australia. What drew my attention to this book was a post written by Dave Mallinak at his blog, The Village Smithy, with the title, Gone Contemporary. Please read it. It’s excellent.
I haven’t read Worship Wars, but I watched the podcast posted by Dave on his blog between Joshua Teis and Robert Bakss. I won’t write my answer right away here, because I need to read it first, but, Lord-willing, I’m going to. When I went to find the book online, the first link was from a site called Goodreads, and there were written reviews and ratings, and I saw, positive ones. Surprising some, not entirely, but some, even from a recognizable unaffiliated. This is where we’re at. What is unique here is a book by a professing independent fundamental Baptist, defending the amorality of music. He’s saying amorality is scriptural. Many others are supporting this. They want it.
The interview posted by Dave in my opinion is, first, inane, and second, full of one straw man after another. It is face palm inducing and nauseous. It’s also very sad, sad to what these independent Baptists have become. Truthfully, they already preach a false gospel, because if you look at their doctrinal statements, they don’t include biblical repentance. It’s easy prayerism. Bakss talks like what he’s saying is completely convincing scripturally without at all being convincing. It’s hard to think he could believe himself, especially the part about Gnosticism. It sounds impressive, but it is fiction, spoken about as if there some crucial scholarship, when it is a fraud. You can’t just call something Gnosticism without making connections, which they make none.
Anyway, I’m going to cover Bakss’s book a little at a time. I haven’t read it yet, but I will. I know it’s not right, just from listening to him explain. I’ll also come back to “sensing” or “feeling” the presence of God, mainly in answer to comments in the comment section of that one post. I had not finished my coverage of Overmiller’s attack on the preservation of scripture to justify using a modern version. I have other subjects I want to address, but these are going to keep me busy. Now I’m going to write another installment of the trip to Europe. If you want to comment on this editorial, feel free.
As we were leaving our flat on Monday morning to drive to the airport, many problems presented themselves. The first was how strict the airline would be on our luggage. I had never flown to a foreign country from the United States, forget flying from one foreign country to another foreign country. It was a difficult getting out of the airport in San Francisco. It was slow upon our arrival at Heathrow.
We had bought some things that were not fitting in our suitcase. This can be a mini-stressful moment, sort of a first world stress, but I decided to leave a sweatshirt that I didn’t think would be necessary as we moved south. That created the space.
When I left our flat, I had to find our car, which I had parked a long ways away. I’m glad I left early, because I can’t believe how long it took to find it. The streets of Edinburgh are often crooked and narrow, and everything in the darkness starts looking the same. It was not a familiar car. I walked and walked, covering the same ground again and again. I stopped in front and picked them up with no parking available. We stuffed everything in and took off.
We arrived about twenty minutes later to the airport. I can’t tell you how relieved I was not to be driving anymore on the wrong side of the road from the wrong side of the car. We parked the car. I brought the keys to the drop off point, and we kept walking. It felt all over there, but this really was the start of it.
As we entered the Edinburgh airport, we had time. It seemed safe. We had checked in. We were flying Ryanair, a budget European airline. We went through security very well. When we scanned our passports, we went right through. We went in and ate something. Then we got in line, getting close to departure, someone from the airline looked at our paperwork and said we missed something. We needed to go back through security to have our passports checked in person. It was something on signs around, but nothing that meant anything for us foreign travel rookies. I didn’t foresee us making it through security, checking our luggage again. The anxiety and adrenalin were high.
I led the family first into a shop and asked somebody in the shop to watch our luggage. That was a big, no. Wouldn’t, couldn’t do it. We had a friendly conversation at the restaurant with a Scottish couple. We begged them with fear in our eyes to watch our luggage, while we went through security again. They were very sympathetic and did it. They were a life saver. A young Filipino woman was moving with us every step of that way, because she had done the very same thing we did, so she just followed us.
We exited, were shown the way to security. People were helpful. We were running. The plane was already being boarded. It is a pathetic, weak looking run. Our passports were checked easily. We got through security very very fast, because it was still early. Our flight was to leave at 6am. We didn’t have luggage. We met the Scottish family, got our luggage from them, thanked them profusely. The Filipino young nurse was very happy with us, because we led her to success. We were sitting on the front row of the plane. That was nice. You should always thank the Lord, because these things are part of His providence. We did.
Our flight was from Edinburgh to Bologna. We were traveling to Venice, but we flew to Bologna, because overall it was less expensive to go from Edinburgh to Bologna by plane and then from Bologna to Venice by train, then to go the straight shot to Venice. It was more adventurous anyway, because we got to include a look at Bologna briefly.
The flight went fast and we were in Bologna. This was going to be the new experience of a new language on this trip. I didn’t know how much of an effect that would have. I had heard that Europeans knew English, so I wondered. Italian security was easy. The border guards didn’t even look at us as we showed ours. They just stamped them. We got right through. This seemed like a common sense situation that isn’t felt in the United States, It made me happy. Airport security sent us right through because we did not look like a threat.
We made our way to public transportation, which was a bus, actually more expensive than I expected, almost the cost of the train ride to Venice, to travel to the Bologna main train station. We got there and then it was a matter of finding our train. We found out the track number from someone in the middle of the station who knew English. In a place like Bologna, Italians don’t know English. You can’t talk to almost anyone. You need someone helpful in the train station, and you can find it, but you have to look for it.
After knowing the basic information and knowing right where we needed to be at about 1pm or so, we went close by to get food in an air conditioned location, where we could wait. Bologna looks like a third world country, just saying. It doesn’t feel dangerous, but it doesn’t feel that safe either. It’s dirty, compared to what I would like. I have to say that lots of places in the United States are just as dirty or dirtier and have less a feeling of safety, including where I live in California. We have far worse crime. Once you get past the initial look, Italy seems safe. The worse of it are pickpockets and we knew that, but there isn’t the feeling of violence, especially in Northern Italy.
At the little restaurant, something you might see near public transportation, we got Italian food. Every Italian food in Italy is Italian. No risk there. Some is going to be better than other. It was cheap Italian food, but we liked it because it was our first in Italy. It was hot there in June, not like Arizona, but quite a difference from just being in Edinburgh. The jackets and sweatshirts and sweaters were gone. We were to our train in time, right place, right seat, and very comfortable and very fast from Bologna to Venice. We made it to Venice in no time.
The place we were staying in Venice was very close to the Mestre train station just north of Venice. We had planned on going there first. We were tired. We could walk to our place and we did.
This was the most fantastic place we stayed our entire time on the trip. The owner’s name was Massimmo and he himself was a world traveler, who seemed to know every language in existence. We spent time talking to him about Venice and Europe. He was a Venice native and considered Venice to be its own region in Italy, very different than the South. He understood what was happening in the United States very well.
We rested, and if there was anything about this point in our trip, we stayed too long before we got on the train into Venice. I’ll bring that to you in the next post.
Evan Roberts: Date-Setting Deception in the Translation Message, Part 14 of 22
The content of this post is now available in the study of:
1.) Evan Roberts
2.) The Welsh Revival of 1904-1905
on the faithsaves.net website. Please click on the people above to view the study. On the FaithSaves website the PDF files may be easiest to read.
You are also encouraged to learn more about Keswick theology and its errors, as well as the Biblical doctrine of salvation, at the soteriology page at Faithsaves.
Gender Fluidity: The Destruction of the Symbols That Serve to Distinguish One Gender from Another
An aspect of righteous living is men dressing in men’s things and women in women’s. Someone may wonder why it’s got to be such a big deal. Why can’t we just ignore it and act like it’s nothing? It’s a requirement from God. A godly culture constitutes symbols of manhood and womanhood as an endorsement or confirmation of God’s design in His creation and to model the distinction. The culture does this because of God, if it’s a godly culture. When it stops mattering to a culture, it’s because the culture is turning away or has turned away from God. It has rejected His way, like Lamech rejected God’s definition of marriage, because He rejected God in the ungodly line.
To write about this, I want to start with a baseline of a couple of definitions, two that are important, first, the distinctions between gender and sex. I’m going to use Wikipedia, despite some’s opinion that it isn’t credible as a source, but to give us something to work with.
The distinction between sex and gender differentiates a person’s biological sex (the anatomy of an individual’s reproductive system, and secondary sex characteristics) from that person’s gender, which can refer to either social roles based on the sex of the person (gender role) or personal identification of one’s own gender based on an internal awareness (gender identity).
Sex and gender are related, because sex is what God created. Gender should be based upon the sex of a person, but it is also learned or chosen behavior. Someone is born male and female, but we know from scripture and can see with our eyes that people turn from how God created them based on sin. Gender is a combination of nature and nurture. People were born with obvious sexual differences and then those are supported through multiple elements of training, parents and church foremost. It helps if society at large upholds these, but that shouldn’t be expected.
The other definition is in the title, that being gender fluidity. A term that didn’t come on my radar until just recently. Mirriam-Webster says that it wasn’t invented until 1994. Both these quotes come from the Mirriam-Webster online dictionary.
of, relating to, or being a person whose gender identity is not fixed
And then I found that gender can have fluidity, which is quite different from ambiguity. If ambiguity is a refusal to fall within a prescribed gender code, then fluidity is the refusal to remain one gender or another. Gender fluidity is the ability to freely and knowingly become one or many of a limitless number of genders, for any length of time, at any rate of change. Gender fluidity recognizes no borders or rules of gender. —Kate Bornstein, Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women and the Rest of Us, 1994
Sex isn’t fluid, and gender is fluid insofar that people rebel against God’s created designed differences between men and women. Sin influences this as seen in Romans 1.
Gender fluidity is where we’re at as a culture. I’m not saying that everyone in the world has accepted it, but most people reading this know that we’ve reached a time where someone can self-identify gender. If this is going to change, if it’s going to be put in the bottle like it should be, Christians above all must want it. They must support gender distinction. If they won’t, it’s not going to happen and we will continue along this same path.
The foundations of gender fluidity, yes, are related to rejection of Genesis 1, proceeding out of naturalism. If people remove God as creator, then they can choose what they want to be, instead of believing what God did. I’m asserting this began with the rejection of the symbols of manhood and womanhood. Continuing to defend the elimination of the symbols is an embracing of gender fluidity. This is how it looks in scripture.
Gender distinctions are purposeful. A culture must believe them and support them to ward off what is now being called fluidity. The symbols are important, which is what we see taught at least in Deuteronomy 22:5 and 1 Corinthians 11:3-16 (this is taught in several other places too, but those are classic locations). Mocking the symbols, ridiculing the designed distinctions in a culture, is welcoming gender fluidity. People who profess to be Christians do this now.
More than any other factor, worldliness is the cause of the Christian cooperation with fluidity. Christians don’t want to stick out in their culture. They want to be Christians, essentially go to heaven when they die, and yet not suffer in the world (my point in Monday’s post). This is truly a form of Christianity, not actual Christianity. Christians have hastened gender fluidity, because they themselves are ashamed of the distinctions in gender. This is easy to see today.
Christian men more than anyone are responsible for gender fluidity. They have capitulated to women as what are called beta males. They so want the favor of women, like Adam in the garden, that they cede their manhood, what some call the man card. Men then talk and walk in an effeminate manner with no repercussions. Those who say anything are said to be “bullying.” Most bullying is pointing out the obvious even in a nice way. It started, I assess, with women not wanting the “rough” treatment of their sons by fathers, who wanted to develop toughness in their boys.
There is something both symbolic and real to women now wearing the pants. Women wear pants and wear the pants. Women challenge men and men fold. The symbols have been eliminated and Christian accede to this in culture, even pushing for it. The biggest arguments that I read are usually effeminate men who mock in an effete manner. They don’t have arguments coming from strength, but manipulative, emotional arguments like would be expected from women, then glancing around for similar expressions from similar males for reinforcement. Here, when I write on related subjects, and they comment, they almost always remain anonymous.
If gender fluidity is going to end, men will have to lead, and to start, in the most simple way, they must return to the symbols of gender established by a godly culture. Their women must stop wearing pants. This isn’t all there is to it, but it is so basic, that it is a starting point. Some reading here will say they can’t do that, because scripture isn’t clear, so they do nothing. Scripture says something, not nothing. The historic (and biblical) position has not been replaced. It’s just been dropped. There is still a female symbol, the dress or skirt. Men are not wearing skirts or dresses at Bob Jones University and Maranatha and their constituent churches, yet.
The attack on roles almost always goes one direction. It doesn’t start with men attempting to be women. That should be obvious. It should be. Part of being effeminate for men is feigning ignorance on this, not knowing what I’m talking about. It’s another lie, just like gender fluidity is a lie. So fluidity starts with women wearing pants. Society was aghast to start and then this eroded for the same reasons it always has eroded and does erode. One book called it the death of outrage. Move on, nothing to see.
If the United States is not going to change on this, and I don’t think it will, it doesn’t mean it should not change in your family and in your church. That’s where it must happen first. Judgment begins in the house of God.
How Evangelicalism and Fundamentalism Have Invented and Continue to Reinvent A Socially Acceptable Impostor and Placebo Christianity
Most of you reading know how offended someone might become if you question his Christianity. Professing Christians want to keep Christian identity fluid. They can define what a Christian is or isn’t based upon their innermost concept of self without conforming to any established definition. If you perceive yourself to be a Christian, your claim should be accepted without imposed external requirements.
Christianity isn’t popular. Jesus said it wasn’t. It isn’t popular because of what it is, so there are choices. One, believe Christianity and suffer. Two, don’t believe Christianity and don’t suffer for it. Three, change Christianity into a Christianity where you will not suffer.
What do Christians suffer for? The world hates Christianity, because it is light. It is different than the world. To change Christianity, you would need to remove the differences. Make a Christianity with the parts that people might like and leave out the parts that people would not like. However, much, if not most, of Christianity is of disliked components.
The World Chooses What It Doesn’t Like
Christians don’t choose what the world doesn’t like. As you read scripture, you can see that philosophies or practices in the world arise that clash with Christianity, and that becomes what is disliked in Christianity. The world chooses what it doesn’t like about Christianity and that becomes something Christians have to react to. In Corinth, the bodily resurrection was disliked and professing Christians started denying it or attempting to blend a denial of bodily resurrection with the rest of Christianity. That doesn’t mean that bodily resurrection is what causes Americans today to hate Christianity. I don’t find that to be a particularly hated aspect of Christianity right now. so it’s easy to be pro bodily resurrection. Who wouldn’t want to get a new body? The world decides what it doesn’t like about Christians and Christianity and that might change in succeeding areas and in various locations.
Caesar worship isn’t in vogue, but it was a problem for Christians in Paul’s day. There will always be a problem in the world with Jesus as Lord, but Caesar was the competition. The world has its agenda and Christians will conflict with it.
The history of liberalism in the United States relates to what is unpopular or unacceptable in the academy. Naturalism or rationalism became fashionable. It wasn’t the truth unless it had historical documentation of a certain quality. Threatened by unemployment or some kind of intellectual embarrassment, professing Christians bridged the gap between the Bible and naturalism to the degree necessary to remain in the academy. It isn’t actually possible, but they still did it, and this became a new kind of Christianity, a blended form. In general if you didn’t take liberal Christianity or the new harmonization with liberalism, you weren’t accepted. Original Christian positions separated to new institutions, probably accepting lower salaries and less credibility.
Liberalism didn’t translate to the pews of churches. The unpopularity was in the narrower arena of academia. Liberalism was unpopular with church members, but it trickled down and eroded churches over time. The leadership trained by liberal institutions slowly took down the churches of various denominations. False beliefs became more acceptable through various means. If churches stayed true to scripture, they did it by remaining separate and receiving leadership separate from liberalism and blended Christianity.
Was and is blended Christianity, a Christianity harmonized to varying degrees with liberalism or other alterations of the Bible, actually Christianity? Are the various “Christianities” equal or should they be accepted in a form of Christianity fluidity?
The Biggest Clash with Christianity Is In and With the Culture
The biggest clash between the world and Christianity comes in the culture or in the practice of Christianity. The world wants to do what it wants to do without judgment. Christianity clashes with the culture. When you read the Bible, the earliest manifestation of the ungodly line is represented by Lamech’s bigamy. He changed the definition of marriage. He wasn’t advocating for polytheism, but disobeying God’s original teaching on marriage. He wanted two wives, not just the one required by God.
Today’s Lamech might be acceptable because he hasn’t maybe embraced false doctrine. Or has he embraced false doctrine? If you aren’t doing what God says, He isn’t God to you. You don’t get to make up new definitions and self-identify in a different way and still believe in the true God. The third way above, where blended Christianity is Christianity, isn’t true. It might be accepted as true, and then the acceptance itself accepted, but God doesn’t accept it. Or perhaps you could just wait and find out.
The world wants to use whatever language it wants without judgment. It wants to dress or undress like it wants. The world in general operates according to fleshly lust and this characterizes its music, its entertainment, and its recreation. Just like professors conceded to liberalism in academia, churches capitulated to the culture. The women in churches of New Testament times started taking on the features of the new Roman woman. The Apostle Paul sees the world creeping into the church with immodestly or ostentatiously dressed, independent, loose women taking authority for themselves. He goes back to creation order in 1 Timothy 2 to bring the church back in line and commands Timothy to eradicate these distortions with all authority. The same movement has occurred in the United States and now Christians have accepted the new American woman, except they say either scripture doesn’t judge this innovation or it’s a non-essential, non separating issue, not a matter of concern to Christian fellowship.
Christians stick out the most in the world because of their discord with the culture. The easiest way to popularize Christianity is to eliminate the cultural differences, to blend Christianity with society. This has been done now in and by evangelicalism and fundamentalism. They have bifurcated Christian doctrine from Christian practice. The doctrinal positions are elevated to a distant priority from the behavior of Christianity, except where the lifestyle could coexist with the culture. Christianity can still be Christianity and also acceptable to the world.
Several Christian leaders observed the possibility of the coordination of social justice with Christian living. Christians could practice Christianity with social justice and appropriate worldly acceptance. The Washington Post could like that Christianity. It’s also a gospel the world might advocate.
Change in Practice Also Changes Doctrine
The difference in culture between the world and Christians doesn’t quarantine itself from doctrine. God is One and all His truth is One. You can’t pick off Christian practice, leaving doctrine without damage, just like you can’t pick and choose favored attributes of God. If you eliminate one attribute of God, He isn’t Who He is anymore. He is a different God.
If you allow the world to influence the music accepted in churches for worship, God becomes how you worship. Music hasn’t been amoral and isn’t amoral. It has meaning. Your God will be shaped to the music you offer Him. Then when God accepts fleshly lust, the worshiper becomes lustful. The priestesses of Diana or Artemis in Ephesus were prostitutes, holy to their god.
Like the other cultural issues, where Christians have adapted to the world, to take away the unpopularity and the conflict, evangelicalism and fundamentalism has relegated cultural distinctions to non-essentials. In a very noticeable way, now these changes are also changing doctrine. You can’t segregate practice from doctrine in a way that will keep doctrine pure. The two are inexorably connected, mutually inclusive.
Jesus is Lord. Apostates deny the Lord who bought them (2 Pet 2:1). They don’t want a boss. Rebellion most characterizes the world’s problem with God. They might be fine to acknowledge Him if He would leave them alone. It is a volitional problem. The conflict in will between the world and God finds itself most in the culture. Christianity is different than the world. When it is the same as the world, is it still Christianity? Is it really still the same God? I’m saying and wanting to prove to you, no, it isn’t.
This is where I see Christian fluidity preceding something like gender fluidity. The latter proceeds from the former. You can’t be the Christian you imagine in your innermost being, self-identifying as a doctrinal Christian and not a practical one. There is a doctrinal problem still, even if you don’t recognize it. This is a different gospel that doesn’t really repent, even if it claims the word, repent.
What isn’t acceptable today in Christianity with the compliance of evangelicalism and fundamentalism is Christianity. Christianity is a whole, not just parts. You can’t take out its parts and have it still be Christianity. It has become for people to judge when it has dipped below the level of being Christian. Now if you don’t advocate for dismissing parts of Christianity, you aren’t a Christian. Toleration has become a major tenet along with the new accompanying doctrines. Unity is now agreeing to disagree.
If Christianity, the only Christianity, is to be preserved and then propagated, men are going to have to stand against the blending or capitulation I’ve described — all of it. First, they need to understand it. If they haven’t agreed to it, they need to admit that they had it wrong before. They can’t get along. I’m asking you to join me in this. We need men who will do this and stop sitting on their hands, acting like none of it matters, minding their own business. If you read this and it sounds true, or you find yourself being convinced, at least admit in public that you are thinking about it and are willing to consider it.
Men are afraid to today of sticking out. Like the men in the growing liberalism of old, they had to go outside the camp and lose something. Be willing to lose what Paul says is loss. Giving up loss is acceptable. Count gain as loss and loss as gain. Go back to square one, whatever it might mean to your career or your perceived success for the sake of the truth.
The Trip to Europe Continued (Fourteenth Post In Total)
One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine Ten Eleven Twelve Thirteen
Some of what we did on Sunday, June 10, still in Scotland, I included in the very first part above. We attended a morning service at Glenrothes Free Baptist Church in the morning and ate lunch at the Gleasons in the afternoon. Pastor Jon Gleason pastors the church in Glenrothes. He has commented here at the blog, as I at his. They were very gracious hosts. I also talked about the church we attended on Sunday night, Leith Free Church, very close to where we stayed.
I got up early with a few purposes in mind. I needed to take public transportation to pick up a rental car from the airport. I left from The Shore in Leith, where we were staying for a fifty minute bus ride on Skylink 200 to the Edinburgh Airport Enterprise.
I disembarked at the bus stop, walked a little ways to the Enterprise, picked up the car, and drove back to The Shore and picked up my family. Thankfully, this would be my last time of driving on the left side of the road, the right side of the car, and a manual transmission with my left hand. The road to Glenrothes crosses The New Forth Road Bridge over the Firth of Forth.
Later that afternoon we took a roundabout trip and stopped briefly at field of the Battle of Bannockburn, perhaps the most important battle in Scottish history, where Robert the Bruce made his claim to fame. We also drove by Stirling Castle.
That night after the church service, the girls stayed back at the flat, and my wife and I took a walk further east in Leith to see the Britannia, the long time royal yacht of Queen Elizabeth II. Right in front of the large boat is a gigantic three story mall that was open, but almost empty that Sunday night after church. We didn’t take time for a tour while we were there, but you get a pretty good view on the top floor outside porch area of the mall.
The next morning we would leave very early from the U.K. to fly to Italy. This was our second leg of this journey and it was a bit of a mystery. I had never flown overseas. Now we would fly from a foreign country to another foreign country. The idea was that we would drive to the airport in the rental car, return it to the Enterprise, and walk into the airport. From there, we would figure out all that we needed to do. It would be an interesting and exciting time.
Availability for Meetings
Dear brethren,
You can see messages I have preached (relatively) recently, as well as things taught, here. The “Most Important Message” is an illustration of evangelistic preaching (unfortunately, only the first part is live at this point), while several classes have parts of them live here, here, and here (more coming, Lord willing.)
A Post Among a Series of Posts by John MacArthur about Social Justice and the Gospel
John MacArthur is writing a series dealing with social justice and the gospel (parts one, two, three, and four so far), and I’m focusing primarily on one of them, part three, which his organization calls part two.
An emphasis on social justice and tying that to the gospel has invaded evangelicalism. MacArthur says that he could see it coming, but now is when he’s saying something about it. I’m happy he is saying something about it.
Some would say, look, see what we’ve been saying, MacArthur deals with important subjects, while independent fundamental Baptists talk about dress, music, and alcohol. He’s doing something about the gospel. As anyone reading here knows, we also deal with the gospel here, including where independent Baptists go wrong on it. I’ve written a lot on it and our Word of Truth Conference has been on the gospel for the last three years, and will be about it this year too.
MacArthur has to deal with the social gospel as related to the gospel because it is affecting those with whom he affiliates. I wouldn’t need to deal with it at my church at all. That’s been clear. In fact, because related subjects, ones that folks would say have nothing to do with the gospel, were ignored, he’s now confronting a subject such as this.
Evangelicals for awhile have pandered to various constituencies in order to get their crowds. They would say that it’s been important so that they could reach these people with the gospel. This is mainstream evangelicalism. They have also kept kicking issues down the road, treating them like their not gospel issues, and then they hit them right in the face as related to the gospel. Evangelicals have been wrong on this. This is not something MacArthur says. He talks about all this like he’s had no problem, has had nothing to do with the problem, which isn’t true. He’s a part of evangelicalism and part of the problem.
Before I write more, I want to say that I really like what MacArthur has written in his part three. It’s worth reading for anyone and important to understand. I agree with MacArthur in what he’s written. I agree with most of the series. I’m on his side in what he is writing. A few things he writes are not exactly right, but I’m with him on the crux of everything that he writes in this series. He’s helpful. It’s sad what has happened to evangelicalism.
MacArthur treats several issues that he relates to the gospel. In his first paragraph, he writes:
Evangelicals as a group have shown an unsettling willingness to compromise or unnecessarily obfuscate all kinds of issues where Scripture has spoken plainly and without ambiguity.
The essence of this statement I support, except for one part, that I believe haunts evangelicalism and still MacArthur. This is one of those aspects where he’s “not exactly right,” to put it kindly. His statement implies that some of scripture is not plain and that some of it is ambiguous. This really is where MacArthur and evangelicals get themselves in trouble and they open the door for denial of the truth and compromise of God’s will. Certain teaching and application of scripture is disobeyed, because MacArthur and others like him give their listeners the strong impression that a good number of subjects that have been clear in the past to Christians, really are not.
I know MacArthur would confess to support the historic doctrine of perspecuity. If pushed, he only goes so far as to support perspecuity as it relates to gospel related subjects. He is saying that the Bible does have plain and non-ambiguous statements, but with his implication that it has some that are not plain and are not ambiguous, he opens the door for professing Christians to do what they want, even on the subjects that he addresses.
Nevertheless, MacArthur says the truth about certain subjects, the ones that he says are plain and without ambiguity. From my reading through the years, with him and some of his associates, the subjects that are without ambiguity are the ones he says are without ambiguity. However, certain subjects have not been with ambiguity until in the last century, and those are ones that MacArthur himself says are ambiguous. His capitulation on some of those have led to many of the issues that he’s concerned about, like the strange fire of Charismaticism, the pragmatism everywhere in evangelicalism, and the role reversal.
The list of plain doctrines or practices MacArthur addresses in the article (part three) and with which I agree with him are the following:
- Women Preachers
- Marriage Role Reversal
- Accepted Fornication
- Borrowing from Pop Culture for Worship and Church Growth
- Worldly Methods
- Seeker Sensitive
- Pragmatism
- Social Justice
The Confusion and Heterodoxy of Modern Version Proponents: Revisited in Light of “FBFI and the KJV,” Its Reasons and Debate, pt. 2
As a bit of a side note, but worth noting, has been an internal influence of preservation of words, and, therefore, King James Version, around Bob Jones University, mainly through the connection with Ian Paisley. Back in the day, Paisley came to BJU and he was different on this issue than Bob Jones, and yet he was a favorite there. That translated to other influential leaders, like Rod Bell, longtime president of the FBF, now FBFI. Bell believed like Paisley. That faction existed in the Bob Jones crowd.
What is more important, keeping all of the various factions together and for what purpose? Or is it doing our part in the preservation of scripture and also preserving the doctrine of preservation? The two different bibliologies cannot both be true. They shouldn’t coexist.
I come back to Overmiller’s instruction on preservation passages. He’s got a lot of work to do to explain away multiple preservation passages.
Matthew 5:17-18
Overmiller categorizes Matthew 5:17-18 as teaching preservation of scripture directly. Then he contradicts that in his short paragraph about these two verses. He says they may or may not even be about preservation, but about “the unchanging authority of the Old Testament in every detail.” It’s hard to understand what Overmiller is saying, especially in light of what the actual verses say.
There is a simple, plain understanding of Matthew 5:17-18. I agree that the “jot” is the smallest consonant, the yodh. The “tittle,” keraia, through history was understood then as a vowel point. A newer position is that it is just a part of a letter, so jot is the smallest letter and tittle is a part of a letter that differentiates it from other letters.
Heaven and earth are going to pass. That is not symbolic. However, until they pass, not even the parts of words will pass away. Nothing in the law, which is shorthand for the Old Testament, as is the law and the prophets, will pass away until everything in it is fulfilled. This is not metaphorical language. Heaven and earth are heaven and earth and jots and tittles are jots and tittles.
This teaching from Jesus goes right along with all the other passages on preservation. The words of the original language will be preserved, right down to the letter.
Isaiah 40:8
Overmiller says that Isaiah 40:8 doesn’t teach preservation of scripture. It’s very much like Matthew 5:17-18, comparing the temporal existence of something to the eternal existence of something else. Grass and flowers wither and fade, but not the words of God. He says it can’t mean preservation, because there are unwritten words that God did not say that He did not preserve. Who in the history of Christianity has believed that preservation of scripture refers to anything, but God’s written word, not all of the words that He ever spake that are not recorded in scripture? This is nothing but a straw man.
God’s covenant with man is always written, the Old and the New. They should not be separated from one another like the Marcionites. They are the same message, progressively revealed in time, albeit forever settled in heaven. Grass and flowers are tangible. Heavens and earth are tangible. Written words are tangible. The former passes away, the latter continues. To make the latter intangible, spoken words that would not be preserved like these tangible things, doesn’t fit the parallelism.
Matthew 24:35
Again, Overmiller defies the plain meaning of the text. He says it can’t mean preservation, because spoken words of Jesus were never preserved. That is reading something into the text that isn’t there. Jesus’ words “shall not pass away” is very straightforward. The whole eschatological section in Matthew 24 indicates the temporality of heaven and earth as God’s judgment comes, but His words will survive all of that. Yes, you can always count on His words, because they will always be there, unlike heaven and earth. We should prioritize His words, because they will last.
John 10:35
Overmiller writes that this verse is not about preservation. When you read it in its context, it is even more convincingly about preservation. How is scripture broken? A prophecy was made in the Old Testament about Jesus based upon just a few letters, a singular instead of a plural. That argument could be made because the line of the very writings of the Old Testament found in even letters could not be broken. The singulars or plurals of words would continue unbroken.
1 Peter 1:24-25
Overmiller muddles the teaching of preservation here too. In this section, Peter uses the word for particular portions of scripture, rhema, and the one that would refer to all of the Word, logos. They would endure, both of them, the portions and the whole Word, forever. Corruptible seed is seed that rots and disappears. Incorruptible seed remains. Fleshly physical things will not continue, but God’s Word will.
There are more passages Overmiller mentions, and I’ll be coming back to them, perhaps early next week. However, there are quite a few other passages that teach the doctrine of preservation that he left out. We can and should know that scripture teaches its own preservation, down to the smallest letter in the original language, that is, what it was written in.
If you asked the typical people in the pew whether God preserved all of His Words, saved people, they’ll say, yes. A major reason is because the doctrine of preservation is all over the Bible and they also know that is the nature of the one true God. It is preachers who start with textual criticism, who also cast doubt and uncertainty on God’s Word that leaves people in doubt. Just normal, average Christian, no scholar, can see that the Bible teaches its own preservation.
More to Come
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